Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Just-In-Time Training (Teach Job Skills Like I Taught Monopoly)

It’s quiet
time at the cottage (that’s a cabin for my American friends and colleagues).
Our youngest is in bed, pretending to sleep (he’s a sly one). The dogs are
curled up on the floor or stretched out on the couch. My wife is reading her
book (her eyes may or may not be open). I’m catching up on some of the blogs I
follow (courtesy of RSS – there’s no phone or internet here, but I synched up
when we went into town for supplies). Our older kids are looking for something
to do.

“Hey,” says
our oldest, scanning the bookshelf of board games “how about we play Monopoly?”

There may
have been a grumble from my wife’s direction. I chalk it up to post-traumatic
stress. Been there, done that.

I briefly
entertain the thought of warning the kids about the evils of Monopoly, particularly when played by
siblings, but I hold my tongue. This could be entertaining, watching an
“innocent” game devolve into arguments and accusations (I bet every game of Monopoly ends with a flipped playing
board). Besides, if somehow the game doesn’t turn sour, it’ll keep the kids
occupied for fifty or sixty hours.

The kids open
the box and set up the board when they realise there are no playing
instructions. At this point, they figure they can turn to a trusted elder to explain
the rules to them. Finding none, they decide to ask me instead.

It’s probably
been twenty years since I played Monopoly.
I set about explaining (as best I could) how to play. Here are the key points I
covered:

Movement:

How
many dice to roll and how far to move on a roll

Moving
again after you roll doubles

Going
to jail if you roll 3 doubles in a row

Getting
money when you pass “Go” (and the bonus for landing directly on “Go”)

Property Management:

Buying
properties

Charging
rent

Buying
houses and hotels

Mortgaging
properties

Odds & Ends:

Landing
on “Go to Jail”

Landing
on “Just Visiting”

Winning:

Bankruptcy

Did you
notice how that was laid out like topic headings for a training session? That,
friends and colleagues, is no coincidence.

I think we
can all agree I managed to cover everything there is to know about Monopoly. No? How about 80% of
everything there is to know about Monopoly?
Probably. How about everything someone needs to know to get started with a
game? I’d say so.

That’s the
point I’m making today.

Do you really
need to cover every possible scenario in your course? Maybe there are
situations that don’t come up every day, or things that your learners will only
need to use once in a while, or perhaps only after they’ve been on the job for
some time. Don’t clutter your training with those things. Focus instead on what
your learners need right now.

There are
many ways to cover those uncommon cases outside of your training. A manual or
knowledge management solution would be great. An expert or support person your
trainees can consult is good too. You can even have them come back for expert
level training once they’ve mastered the basics.

Back to that
game of Monopoly. You probably
believe I forgot some of the rules. You are very astute (which doesn’t surprise
me – all of my readers are above average). I bet you’re thinking that my kids
suffered because I didn’t tell them about the Chance, Community Chest or Free
Parking spaces. You are, of course, wrong. The first time someone landed on one
of those squares, we had a quick confab to discuss how they work.

My challenge
to you is this: have a careful look at one of your training programs and see
what you can cut. Depending on what documentation you have for your courses,
you could look at course objectives, topics in a facilitator’s guide or even
the table of contents of a manual. Be ruthless as you go through. When you’re
developing a new course, apply the same scrutiny to the objectives that come
from your subject matter expert or the training sponsor.

Here are some
examples to get you thinking in the right direction:

“We need to all customer service reps to know in
the case of administrate seizure of assets. We had a complaint from a caller
because the person they spoke to didn’t know what to do.”One complaint? Out of how many calls?What if we made this information
available on the intranet instead? Reps could look it up if and when they need
it.

“All tellers need to be able to process wire
transfers to foreign banks.”That doesn’t
sound like something that happens every day.What if we made sure that someone
in the branch (such as branch managers and shift supervisors) can do this, but
not every teller? If a teller ever gets a client who wants to wire funds to a
foreign bank, they can call the supervisor for help.

“Every plant employee must know the proper
procedure to follow in the event of a nuclear meltdown.”You got it!This might not happen often (I certainly hope it doesn’t),
but it’s critical nonetheless. Also, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have
plant employees spend precious minutes looking the information up in a manual
or asking their supervisor what to do. An extra minute or two won’t kill the
telephone rep or the bank teller above, but they just might be the difference between
life and death for our nuclear plant
employee.